THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE 9/11 INQUIRY

By JAMES RISEN

Published: September 25, 2002

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24—
An F.B.I. agent in Phoenix who suspected that operatives of Al Qaeda might be taking aviation-related training in the United States was tracking an Islamic radical with close ties to a Sept. 11 hijacker, according to a Congressional report released today.

The F.B.I. agent, Kenneth Williams, wrote a memorandum in July 2001 urging F.B.I. headquarters to begin scrutinizing Arab men attending flight schools around the country to determine whether terrorists were trying to gain aviation training to infiltrate American airports and aircraft. His suspicions were raised because he had found that an ''inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest'' who were being monitored by the F.B.I. were attending a flight school in Phoenix.

Mr. Williams's memo focused on 10 Muslims from Kenya, Pakistan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, India and Saudi Arabia. Some were taking flight training, others were aeronautical engineering students and one was studying international aviation security, according to a report by the staff of the joint committee investigating the attacks.

The F.B.I. did not act on Mr. Williams's recommendations before the attacks on New York and Washington, and so the way in which his memo was handled has become a central question in the Congressional inquiry into Sept. 11 intelligence failures.

The committee reported that at least one of the men Mr. Williams was monitoring was an associate of Hani Hanjour, who is believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. That is the closest connection yet made public between the Phoenix cases Mr. Williams was monitoring and the attacks on New York and Washington.

While the Phoenix memo ''does not include by name any of the hijackers,'' the joint committee's report stated, ''our review confirmed that the F.B.I. now believes that one of the individuals named was connected to Hani Hanjour.''

Among those who reviewed Mr. Williams's memo were agents in the bureau's New York office, where the F.B.I. maintains an international terrorism squad.

They did not act on his recommendations, however, finding his memo to be ''speculative and not particularly significant,'' the joint committee report stated Tuesday. ''New York already knew that many Middle Eastern flight students, including several associated with bin Laden, trained in the United States,'' the committee report said. ''They believed that bin Laden needed pilots to transport goods and personnel in Afghanistan, and at the time viewed pilots connected to bin Laden in that light.''

Mr. Williams acknowledged that he did not anticipate the kind of terrorist plot that was used in the attacks on Sept. 11, according to the joint committee's report. Instead, he was concerned that Islamic extremists were coming to American flight schools to study a wide range of aviation topics to help them hijack or destroy aircraft and get jobs that would help them evade airport security.

Mr. Williams testified today behind a screen to protect his identity. But he complained that his public identification by Congress earlier this year has placed him and his family in jeopardy from potential reprisals by Al Qaeda.

''I am not afraid of the F.B.I.,'' he said, meaning that he was not worried about retaliation from his superiors for his testimony, ''but I am very concerned about Al Qaeda and what they may want to do to me and my family. Sadly, I can thank the United States Congress for my current situation.''

The committee report states that one of the individuals mentioned in the Phoenix memo had trained with Mr. Hanjour at an Arizona flight school as early as 1997.

Since Sept. 11, the F.B.I. has confirmed five occasions when Mr. Hanjour and the individual mentioned in the Phoenix memo were at the flight school on the same day, according to the Congressional report.

The F.B.I. has also been told that they knew each other through attendance at a religious center in Arizona, the report stated.

Mr. Williams's July memo primarily focused on one individual who was a member of al-Muhajiroun, a group whose spiritual leader was a supporter of Osama bin Laden, the Congressional report stated. The group's spiritual leader had issued several fatwas, or religious decrees, against the United States, including ''one mentioning airports as a possible target,'' the report said.

The member of al-Muhajiroun, who was not identified by name in the committee report, was studying aviation-related security courses at Embry Riddle University in Phoenix, and was organizing anti-American and anti-Israel rallies calling for jihad. The committee report did not say whether this individual was the same person who was later linked to Mr. Hanjour.

Photo: Kenneth Williams, an F.B.I. agent, testified yesterday from behind a screen to hide his identity. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)